Mason's most notable arguments were the following: • The German working class was always opposed to the Nazi dictatorship. • In the overheated German economy in the late 1930s, German workers could force employers to grant higher wages by leaving for another firm, which would grant their desired wage increases. • It was a form of political resistance that forced
Adolf Hitler to go to war in 1939. Thus, the outbreak of the
Second World War was caused by structural economic problems, a "flight into war" that had been imposed by a domestic crisis. The key aspects of the crisis were, according to Mason, a shaky economic recovery being threatened by a rearmament program, which was overwhelming the economy; the Nazi regime's nationalist bluster limited its options. In that way, Mason articulated a
Primat der Innenpolitik ("primacy of domestic politics") view of the war's origins through the concept of
social imperialism. Mason's thesis was in marked contrast to the
Primat der Außenpolitik ("primacy of foreign politics") by which historians usually explained the war. Mason believed German foreign policy was driven by domestic political considerations and that the start of the war in 1939 was best understood as a "barbaric variant of social imperialism". Mason argued, "Nazi Germany was always bent
at some time upon a major war of expansion". However, Mason argued that the timing of such a war was determined by domestic political pressures, especially those relating to a failing economy, and it had nothing to do with what Hitler wanted. Mason believed that between 1936 and 1941, the state of the German economy, not Hitler's 'will' or 'intentions', was the most important cause of German foreign policy. Mason argued that the Nazi leaders were deeply haunted by the 1918 German Revolution and so were greatly opposed to any drop in the living standards of the working-class since they feared provoking a repetition of that revolution. Mason considered that by 1939, the "overheating" of the German economy, which had been caused by rearmament; the failure of various rearmament plans because of the shortages of skilled workers; industrial unrest caused by the breakdown of German social policies and the sharp drop in living standards of the German working class forced Hitler into going to war at a time and place that were not of his choosing. Mason contended that when faced with the deep socioeconomic crisis, the Nazi leadership had decided to embark upon a ruthless 'smash and grab' foreign policy of seizing territory in Eastern Europe that could be pitilessly plundered to support living standards in Germany. Mason described German foreign policy as driven by an opportunistic "next victim" syndrome after the
Anschluss in which the "promiscuity of aggressive intentions" was nurtured by every successful foreign policy move. In Mason's opinion, the decision to sign the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with the
Soviet Union and to attack Poland and to run of the risk of a war with the
United Kingdom and
France were the abandonment by Hitler of his foreign policy programme, which had been outlined in
Mein Kampf, and was forced on him by his need to stop a collapsing German economy by seizing territory abroad to be plundered. Mason's theory of a "flight into war" being imposed on Hitler generated much controversy, and in the 1980s, he conducted a series of debates with economic historian
Richard Overy on the matter. Overy maintained the decision to attack Poland was not caused by structural economic problems but was the result of Hitler wanting a localised war at that particular moment. For Overy, a major problem with the Mason thesis was that it rested on the assumption that although unrecorded by the records, that information had been passed on to Hitler about Germany's economic problems. Overy argued that there was a major difference between economic pressures that were inducted by the problems of the
Four Year Plan and economic motives to seize raw materials, industry and foreign reserve of neighbouring states as a way of accelerating the Four Year Plan. Overy asserted that the repressive capacity of the German state as a way of dealing with domestic unhappiness was also somewhat downplayed by Mason. Finally, Overy argued that there is considerable evidence that the state felt that it could master the economic problems of rearmament. As one civil servant put it in January 1940, "we have already mastered so many difficulties in the past, that here too, if one or other raw material became extremely scarce, ways and means will always yet be found to get out of a fix". == Intentionist vs. functionalist historical schools ==